Some of the garden is doing great….other parts not so great.

Potatoes are the best of all this year. I have 5 or 6 kinds out there, including All Blue.  Several varieties are blooming, which means potatoes are beginning to form down below.

Blooming Norland (red) Potatoes

The plants in the hay bales are mature and doing well. The peas will finish up soon, cabbage babies are forming head,s and  the eggplants are starting to set flowers.

Hay Bales with Maturing Cabbage Babies

The container chilies are thriving as well. Some even have blossoms already….confirming my guess that they needed a warmer spot. the metal containers seem to be providing that.

Chilies with First Blossoms

The summer and winter squashes seem to be finally growing. Don’t really know why they just hung around after I transplanted them into the new beds in the back yard.

Summer Squash with More Leaves, Finally

 The pickling cukes are germinating and living another day. I am thinking they will do well, unlike the regular cukes which I have replanted.

The container tomatoes are doing great…don’t know why I bothered to put any in the ground. The weather decimated those.

Container Tomato

Onions, garlic and parsnips, all planted together are doing well too.

Cardboard in Pathway for Weed Control and Bed with Onions, Garlic and Parsnips

Now the other extreme:  carrots, beets, cabbage and beans.

I cannot get carrots or beets to germinate.  I replanted both and covered with frost blanket to protect them from birds and bugs, but still no luck.  This is a real mystery to me. I won’t try again until after the July full moon, which is the correct time to start the fall and winter gardens, anyway.

Some of my beans are  germinating, but something is gobbling them up. They don’t eat the whole plant….just half a leaf.  I will try again in early July, before the full moon.

As for cabbage, which usually is one of my best crops, I have had great luck getting transplants. However, after setting out, something is eating them up too.  Will sow again when the beans go in.

I don’t know the exact reasons for my problems…perhaps drought, early heat, increased bugs, or ?????  I could solve the issue of bugs eating my beans and cabbage seedlings with pesticides…but that is out of the question.

I take this attitude: each year I get what I get. If a particular veggie variety can’t survive and produce here, I am not going to tweak the environment with chemicals to force production. I will plant something else in it’s spot and next year try to find a variety that will do better (thank goodness there are a million kinds of beans).  Better yet, as I learn more about saving seeds I can select for seeds that do well here.

Despite these setbacks, I have a number of blessings:

• a friend gave me a bathtub full of spinach to blanch and freeze (I put prepared spinach in containers then fill with chicken broth…one of my soup bases)

• the Farmer’s Market will provide whatever I can’t grow this year
• with the long growing season, I can still replant and expect at least some cabbages and carrots
• my tomatoes in the Master Gardener greenhouse are doing great…looking forward to making paste from them
• I will be swimming in potatoes….ymmmmmmm. I have missed fresh potatoes